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Found 3GS iPhone 32GB in the street this morning...

SFStateStudent

SFStateStudent

macrumors 604
Original poster
Aug 28, 2007
7,496
3
San Francisco California, USA
next to a car parked in front of me; was running late to a meeting, so I put it in my jacket pocket and went to my meeting. I had it turned on vibrate and when I checked it around noontime, the owner had already turned off service, so at 4:30pm after two meetings, I was able to turn it over to the campus police department for lost and found property. I just thought it was weird that the person didn't call their phone and even after I left a note on the car that I found it next to met with negative results. Oh well, did the best I could....
 
you cant see the contacts on the phone and call one of them?

look for "mom" or someone in the contacts, and you can have them call the person whom lost the phone?

edit: at least your trying to do the right thing!!! I thank people like you!!!
 
I think you did the right thing, but I may have tried calling the last number dialed, to see if they knew whose phone it was.
 
Oh dang, you should have sold it to Gizmodo!

Just kidding. But really, that is weird the owner didn't call it.

I found someone's cellphone last year (a crappy flip one) and texted the person they last texted and said to pick up the phone at the campus police station. The officer called me later that day to thank me and tell me the owner got his phone back.
 
doubleatheman said:
you cant see the contacts on the phone and call one of them?

look for "mom" or someone in the contacts, and you can have them call the person whom lost the phone?

edit: at least your trying to do the right thing!!! I thank people like you!!!
Click to expand...


I don't know...I wouldn't trust security...I would of called the contact numbers...to find the owner.
 
macswitcha2 said:
I don't know...I wouldn't trust security...I would of called the contact numbers...to find the owner.
Click to expand...

he said there was a passcode


you are a good person, i dont know too many people that would do that...

you were basically holding a $400+ device there
 
What's weird is that my wife misplaced her 3GS iPhone the night before at Bucca Di Peppo's in Palo Alto and I had to run to the car to search for it, then I decided to call it, and someone picked it up and answered in Spanish; and I knew my wife speaks French and Japanese and certainly not Spanish. I panicked and tried to get them to speak English, but they continued to speak Spanish. Turns out that one of the Stanford students having dinner with us had located the iPhone in my wife's purse and they played a cruel joke on me by answering the iPhone in Spanish! They got me....:eek::eek::eek:
 
macswitcha2 said:
I don't know...I wouldn't trust security...I would of called the contact numbers...to find the owner.
Click to expand...

This is what I said about the Gizmodo iPhone. No way I'm trusting a bartender to give it back to it's owner. I've already had one rip off my credit card. I know I would be more likely to give it back to it's owner.

Edit: of course, I would probably have trusted the campus police. They are typically not just security, but actually state police (a lot of people assume they are just security.) Of course this probably depends on the campus.
 
I applaud people like you. My iPhone is a part of my life, everything pretty much is on it, pictures, videos, etc.

Not too many good people out there, good to know they still exist, especially after seeing some threads on how they found an iDevice and ask how to reset it to use themselves.
 
SFStateStudent said:
What's weird is that my wife misplaced her 3GS iPhone the night before at Bucca Di Peppo's in Palo Alto and I had to run to the car to search for it, then I decided to call it, and someone picked it up and answered in Spanish; and I knew my wife speaks French and Japanese and certainly not Spanish. I panicked and tried to get them to speak English, but they continued to speak Spanish. Turns out that one of the Stanford students having dinner with us had located the iPhone in my wife's purse and they played a cruel joke on me by answering the iPhone in Spanish! They got me....:eek::eek::eek:
Click to expand...

Man, that is EVIL. :p

Nice to see there are still honest people out there! Good on ya for turning it into the police. Hopefully the owner will get it back soon.
 
You have to admire such honesty.

I'd be the same myself, simply because as an iPhone owner, I can only too well appreciate what the device means to people. Yes, it's "only a cell phone", but to a lot of people it's a part of their day-to-day life and holds everything from personal texts from the past, photos, important dates, etc.

I can only hope that if I'm daft enough to leave my iPhone somewhere that someone like yourself finds it ... although given that I live in Glasgow, Scotland, I wouldn't bet on it.
 
SFStateStudent said:
iPhone was locked with a passcode, but it showed the AT&T Bars and everything until about noontime....
Click to expand...

i would have taken the sim card out and put it in another phone then call my number so i know what number belongs to that sim card. Then put the sim card back in, call it, and 'slide to answer'. Or just put your sim card in there then call it. Whichever works.
 
we need a sticky don't we. he could've done more, and handing it over to police was a bad idea.

if it's a 3GS, hold down the home button and say "call mom/dad/insert common name"...
 
Good man! honesty is very hard to come by these days.

Although I'd be quite reluctant to trust the lost and found cops... lost of things get lost there too, would rather keep it and give to the person myself.
 
What Apple needs to do is put a lost & found button on the lock screen. The owner can chose to put the primary contact info there. Such as phone number, name, email address, etc (all optional). These things are hidden but could be accesses such as a button "email owner" or something like that. Someone can then contact the owner without the owner exposing their personal info. These points of contact are the only thing that someone could do when the phone is locked. Ie. They can only call the number marded as "home" and it is never displayed.

I am really surprised this hasn't been available yet.
 
doubleatheman said:
Yep then you did all you could...

I like using the if found app on my iphone to stamp my home wallpaper with my home phone and email address
Click to expand...

maybe it's just me and my slightly negative view on the majority of people, but isn't that like given someone you don't know the keys to your house?
 
CylonGlitch said:
What Apple needs to do is put a lost & found button on the lock screen. The owner can chose to put the primary contact info there. Such as phone number, name, email address, etc (all optional). These things are hidden but could be accesses such as a button "email owner" or something like that. Someone can then contact the owner without the owner exposing their personal info. These points of contact are the only thing that someone could do when the phone is locked. Ie. They can only call the number marded as "home" and it is never displayed.

I am really surprised this hasn't been available yet.
Click to expand...

The find my iphone functionality in mobileme allows you to do just this. Make the phone ring (even if silent) and display a message of your choice on the locked screen. Also remote wipe and track.
 
I actually found a girls Macbook Pro at a park here in Los Angeles a week and a half ago....I actually brought it to the apple store, and they were able to track down the owner because of her serial numbers and apple care I believe, something to that effect. I just know she got it back because Apple gave her a note my girlfriend and I left with our contact info with the laptop, and she was nice enough to call and say thanks and buy us coffee at Starbucks!

Good man, karma comes back!
 
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